Moaning Riddle
by Demesne
Summary: AU. Hermione Granger wants to unlock the mystery of Moaning Riddle and whether Tom Riddle was really killed in a bathroom fifty years ago. But what she discovers may prove too much for her. Rating may change.


_**ahem, so this is my first story ever, so please don't be too harsh. as you've probably noticed, this is a twist on the Moaning Myrtle story with a different outcome (no ghosts, I mean). I hope you'll like it:)**_

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Chapter 1

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"Moaning Riddle? That sounds stupid."

Hermione shrugged. "I didn't come up with it. It was a nickname that caught on. Professor McGonagall told me it happened when she was a student here."

Ron chuckled. "Blimey, you mean a century ago?"

"Ron, be nice," she chided sternly. "She's not _that_ old. Anyway, the story goes that this seventeen-year old boy named Tom Riddle died in this very bathroom. Apparently, he was a brilliant Slytherin, top of his class, Head Boy –"

"Brilliant and Slytherin?! Already I find this hard to believe," Ron quipped.

Harry laughed. Hermione shot him a look, and he sobered, returning to his Potions book once more.

"So, before I was rudely interrupted by _someone_ who is clearly very bigoted and prejudiced," she continued, arching her eyebrows at Ron, "I was going to say that despite being so intellectually gifted, he had a hard time making friends and was mostly shunned by other students."

Ron put a hand to his chest. "No!"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Harry looked up from his book and frowned. "They shunned him because he was too clever?"

"Well, Professor McGonagall said he was lonely and withdrawn by nature. She doesn't remember him very well, but she thinks others just didn't understand him."

"So what happened to him, anyway?" Ron asked impatiently.

"Well, that's where the interesting part comes in. It's a mystery. He vanished completely."

Both Ron and Harry gaped at her.

"What do you mean vanished?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. McGonagall said he locked himself in this bathroom fifty years ago and when they finally pried the doors open, he was gone."

"But come on, there must be more to it than that!" Ron sputtered.

"Well, yes and no," she said, shivering as she recalled the next part. "There was a message left in blood on the floor. It said, _the Heir has claimed him_."

Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. "But that's – you can't mean the Hogwarts Basilisk."

Hermione nodded. It was the most popular story going around Hogwarts. The Slytherins loved to claim it as their own. When Salazar Slytherin had left the school after breaking off with the three other Founders, he had left behind him his "Heir", a monster that was supposed to haunt the school and feast on all those of "impure" blood. This was the Basilisk.

Many believed it was only a legend meant to frighten First Years. But people still talked about it and sometimes, they mentioned Moaning Riddle, too.

Only the older staff would have actually known Riddle, but few talked about it. Minerva McGonagall had been reticent to tell Hermione, but she had given in at the young witch's insistence. When Hermione Granger wanted to learn something, nothing stood in her way.

"It would have made sense if the Heir took him. He was halfblood."

"Was it – was it his blood on the floor?"

Hermione nodded her head grimly.

Ron swallowed. "Blimey..."

"People assumed he'd been eaten alive. The professors searched for him, of course, but they never found his body. After a year, they gave up. It was as if he had never existed."

Harry sighed. "Well, this has definitely put me in the mood for NEWTs."

Hermione winced. "I know, it's a bit gruesome, but I had to tell you."

"How did he get his name, though?" Ron asked.

"Moaning Riddle? Months after he "vanished", you could hear howling and moaning in the bathroom, especially at night. Like someone was being tortured. It seemed to be coming from the pipes. That's why this bathroom became so unpopular. It's not so noisy now. But you can still hear it sometimes."

"...and you unearthed all of this just because you found a name in a book?" Ron asked sceptically.

"Hey! I had to find out who this Riddle person was. The book only said he'd died under mysterious circumstances on school grounds. I was curious. Wouldn't _you_ be?"

"What was the book called again?"

"_Famous Hogwarts Mysteries_."

"Jolly read, I'm sure," Ron remarked.

"I don't appreciate the sarcasm. Anyway, now that we know what happened, we can probably actually solve it. The mystery, I mean."

Both Ron and Harry looked at her as if she'd gone mad.

"We _what_?!"

"Hermione, isn't Seventh Year enough excitement for you?" Harry asked, pointing at his Potions book. "NEWTs are in a couple of months, you know. Not that I wouldn't go for a bit of adventure, but maybe we can rain check until next year?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on, you two! We used to sneak around under an Invisibility Cloak and defeat trolls! We got into the Department of Mysteries! We even helped an Azkaban convict! And usually, _you_ were the ones who convinced me to go on a crazy adventure and _I_ was the one who worried about school. Can't we switch roles for once?"

"Well, _you_ can afford to, since you know you're getting Os at your NEWTs, but the rest of us mortals will be lucky if we get an A," Ron replied, but there was a note of regret in his voice that betrayed him.

"Ron's right about that, Hermione. I'd love to drop everything and join you guys on some perilous mission, but odds are against us."

Hermione bit her lip. "I understand. It's just that, it's our last year. After that, we'll go our separate ways. I mean of course we'll still be friends, but who knows when we'll go on another adventure just the three of us."

Ron looked miserably into the distance. "We'll have to get real jobs and act like adults, like we actually know what we're doing. No more fooling around."

"Yeah, adventures are probably frowned upon at the Ministry. They weren't all too happy about us getting into their Department," Harry said, smiling fondly at the memory.

"Well, this is exactly why we should have one last hurrah. One last adventure," she told them, smiling in that cat-like manner that meant she had already won.

Harry sighed. "I don't know, this doesn't seem like our usual run of the mill. We haven't tried to find dead bodies before."

Ron agreed. "This bloke might be rotting under this castle right now and we're just going to go hunt for his skeleton?"

Hermione shook her head. "It's not about finding Riddle, per se. It's about finding out, once and for all, whether this Basilisk is real. And whether Tom Riddle really did die."

Harry and Ron exchanged a look. "You think he might still be alive?"

"That's for us to find out," she replied with a smirk.


End file.
